a ďpresentĒ from the young Tizarin couple, and his crewmateís
jealousies:

Very softly, very slowly, Wesley once again knocked his head against the
nearest wall.

*Thud*

*Thud*

*Thud*

It was kind of relaxing, in a way.

Iíve felt like that, havenít you?

Anyway, because of my peculiar mindset of preferring humor over drama, this
iS one of my favorite TNG books. Itís great! I even have the book-on-tape,
narrated by Majel Barrett Roddenberry and John DeLancie, who both do an
outstanding job. Whichever medium you get it in, go read it! Itís one of the
best stories never filmed which should have been filmed!

I never write reviews directly after I read the book. Why, Iím not sure. Do
I want it to age, maybe? Do I want to see how much I can forget before I have to
practically reread the book before I can remember it? Well, anyway, I remembered
I thought there were a few problems with this book, then I remembered why. But
the story first:

Voyager, in need of repairs, approaches an inhabited planet on which
the residents are all too eager to help, almost to the point of annoyance. Voyager
eventually discovers that the people of Sardalia (a) are not well at all, due to
some sickness which is not immediately revealed, and (b) there are two rival
factions on the planet, one of which protect and farm a sea animal, the other
which wants to harvest the sea animal. (I donít remember if itís a mammal or
a fish, but the author definitely wants us to think of dolphins or whales.)
However, before they discover all this, Paris and Kim, while on shore leave,
disappear...

There are two things about this book that I donít care for. First is that
while I donít often mind being reintroduced to characters, I feel that the
author does an exceptionally clumsy job of doing this very thing. Thereís a
fine line between introducing characters to a new reader and not offending the
older reader. Quite frankly, Ms. Haber, in my humble opinion, did this extremely
clumsily in this book.

And the first sentence, too, almost put me to sleep: ďThe U.S.S. Voyager
swept through the long night of the Delta Quadrant and all around it the unknown
stars were white diamonds strewn across the black velvet of space.Ē This is a
very comfortable simile. So what? The Captain is looking at this picture and
thinking how far away from home they areóthere should be a stronger image in
that first sentence. It almost sounds like sheís thinking of her last
rendezvous, if you get what I mean. (Black velvet?!)

And the other thingóit was so obvious to me that the author had an
environmental agenda here. A big deal was made in the book about the supposed
sentience of the sea animals, and the reader is obviously supposed to make the
jump to our own situation with the dolphins and the whales. Iím sorry, Iím
all for saving dolphins and whales too ... Donít preach to me
about it. I get very annoyed.

Like all the Star Trek books, it has some good spots. Iím not saying
you shouldnít buy it, but it really did not work for me.

Star Trek Related News

Kristine Kathryn Rusch, sometime writer of Star Trek Books with her
husband, Dean Wesley Smith, has resigned the editorís post of the magazine Fantasy
and Science Fiction in order to devote more time to writing. She had been
editor of that publication for six years and had, I believe, won awards for her
work. I do know that she had been nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula almost
every year of her tenure.